Report: Amazon/Adept Deal Subject of FTC Inquiry

A U.S. regulator reportedly wants more information on Amazon’s deal with AI startup Adept.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has asked Amazon for details about the arrangement to hire researchers and high-level executives from the artificial intelligence (AI) firm Adept, Reuters reported Tuesday  (July 16), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The request comes amid growing interest among regulators in AI partnerships involving tech giants such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

As reported last month, Amazon has hired Adept co-founder/CEO David Luan and other execs to join its artificial general intelligence (AGI) team.

AGI is a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that can think like human beings. According to an internal memo cited by Bloomberg News, Amazon hopes to use Adept’s technology developing agents, or AI tools that can handle tasks autonomously, to help it create products for automating software workflows.

“David and his team’s expertise in training state-of-the-art multimodal foundational models and building real-world digital agents aligns with our vision to delight consumer and enterprise customers with practical AI solutions.” Rohit Prasad, head of the Amazon AI autonomy team, wrote in the memo.

Spokespersons for both the FTC and Amazon declined to comment when reached by PYMNTS.

The FTC is also looking into Microsoft’s hiring of the leadership team of Inflection AI. The Reuters report notes — per a source — that investigation is examining whether the deal was an attempt to avoid merger disclosure requirements.

In a separate case, the Department of Justice reportedly is looking into whether AI chipmaker Nvidia has violated antitrust laws, while the FTC is also examining Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI.

“If these companies get slapped with an antitrust ruling, it could be a real game-changer for both the tech and AI industries,” Aron Solomon, a lawyer and chief strategy officer at the legal services firm Amplify, told PYMNTS last month.

“We could see these giants getting split up or having their wings clipped, which would open the door for smaller players and newcomers to step up and shake things up.”

Solomon also noted that a ruling like that could force companies to reexamine their business practices and partnerships. And that could have a domino effect on everything from supply chains to pricing and the availability of tech services and products.

“Companies might have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to play nice with others,” he said.